How To Train Your Human
by DragonBlade152
Summary: We all know how Hiccup felt about everything, but what about Toothless? The movie, from Toothless' point of view.
1. Chapter 1

Just so you all know, this is the reason I probably shouldn't stay up ridiculously late at night watching movies. Hope you enjoy anyway. No, I don't anything (except my ideas).

...

Humans are stupid. At least, the ones around here are. No one with any brains at all would settle so close to the Nest, do next to nothing to protect their sheep, and build those ridiculous things they live in out of wood. No matter how many times they would burn down, the humans always rebuilt them out of the same flammable material. The only smart thing they did was build big nasty rock throwers, the sole use, I'm sure, being to bring down us dragons.

I don't know why the humans are so obsessed with killing us. We steal food because we have to. The Green Death eats a lot, and when it doesn't get enough, it eats us instead. If the humans wanted to keep their livestock, they should have moved. I'm sure there's nothing keeping them there, nothing like the pull that keeps most dragons close to the Nest. We attack them for two reasons: to get food for the Green Death, and to defend ourselves. Humans have been killing dragons since the day they first sailed here in those ridiculous things they call ships.

We Night Furies are rare. I believe it's because of our superior abilities. Because of that, we tend to be solitary and rarely help attack the humans, though some say we are selfish and arrogant. That, of course, isn't true in the slightest. Well, maybe a little.

I was only helping in this particular raid because I felt like destroying some of those rock throwers. When I said humans aren't smart, I meant it. They have never caught or killed a Night Fury. In fact, I don't believe they've seen anything but a black streak and fire. I waited a while to attack, letting the others get the humans distracted. A Monstrous Nightmare had lit a rock thrower on fire. Perfect target. I enjoyed the humans cowering at my cry probably more than I should have. With one hit, the humans jumped. With another, the thing was destroyed. I veered around the human settlement, taking my time choosing another target. The one I picked was not currently in use, standing alone in the middle of nowhere. What was the point of it? Well, it wouldn't be a problem for much longer. It blossomed into flame as I soared past, feeling unconquerable. That feeling halted abruptly as, from out of nowhere, something hit and wrapped around me, snaring my wings so that I couldn't fly. Still carried by my momentum, I began falling. I was a good distance away from the humans when I crashed into a tree and skidded through the dirt. The ground ended abruptly, and I soared for a second before bouncing off some boulders and finally coming to a stop. Dragons are tough, and Night Furies are the toughest of all. Never the less, I hurt. A lot. Well this sucks, I thought before passing out.

Something was touching me on my foreleg. I shook it off. Frankly, I still hurt, but not quite as much as when I had crashed. I opened my eyes and saw a human, still young by the looks of him, holding a small knife. I was too tangled up to move. The human said something about cutting out my heart and being a viking before raising his knife. To be perfectly honest, I was frightened. I was completely at the mercy of this human, and I could do nothing but watch. He paused and looked at me before readying his knife again. I closed my eyes and lowered my head in defeat, waiting for the blow. The human said something that sounded like, "I did this." I felt my bonds began to come loose. I opened my eyes. The human was sawing away with his knife. When the ropes were loose enough I burst through and pinned the human against a boulder. My first instinct was to blast him. As my eyes met his, though, I saw that he was as terrified as I had been. And he had spared my life as well. With a roar to make sure he wouldn't forget, I turned and tried to fly off.

Night Furies are extremely swift and agile. This is, for the most part, because we have two sets of fins in addition to our wings: the upper fins at the base of the tail, and the lower, or tail fins, located at the end of the tail. The problem with them is that, should we lose one, we can barely glide, let alone fly. Sometime during my crash I had lost my left tail fin, though I didn't learn this until I tried to fly away. After running into some large rocks I half fell, half glided into a hole. It was enormous, more like a hidden cove than a hole. It had trees, water, fish, and absolutely no way for me to get out. I know. I tried. Half the day was spent recuperating and the other half was devoted to trying to find a way out of the cove, to no avail. I was surrounded by rock walls with ledges too small for me to use. I tried flying, but every time I would lose control and crash. The sun set, and I resigned myself to a night in the place.

The next morning I began exploring the cove more thoroughly. Most of it was water, with a small waterfall at one end. Huge tree roots protruded through the wall in some places, but offered no way out that I found. When there was nothing left to investigate I tried again to fly out, as if by some miracle the next time would work, even though the last ninety-eight million times hadn't. Again and again I tried, flapping, scrabbling at the walls, and again and again I fell, gliding or crashing to the ground, occasionally both. I blasted the ground with my fire before trying one last time. Once again I crashed, this time at the edge of the water. A movement caught my eye. Wearily, I got up. There were fish swimming close by. More in frustration than anything, I snapped at them. I was going to be stuck here for the rest of my life! Something clattered at the other side of the cove, causing me to look up. The human from the day before was on a ledge, staring at me and looking nervous. How long had he been up there? What really surprised me was that he wasn't screaming bloody murder and trying to hack me to pieces like any other of those idiot meat heads would do. I owed him my life. I decided then that I wouldn't hurt him. Not unless he asked for it.

The next afternoon I was sunning myself on a ledge when a fish flopped out from a crack in the rocks. No guess as to who it was. There was a soft thunk and a slight scraping noise. The human came out, picked up the fish, and began walking cautiously. He didn't even notice me until I began coming down from my ledge. When he saw me he gasped and took a step back. I got on even ground and faced him, watching him carefully. He gulped and held out the fish. I came closer before remembering that humans always carried at least one weapon of some kind or another. I pulled back and growled. Sure enough, he showed me his knife. Slowly, he reached for it. When his hand touched it I growled. He took it out and dropped it before kicking it into the water. He was either stupid, crazy, trusting, or a combination of all three. Maybe he wasn't as bad as I had feared. He held out the fish again, and I approached.

An interesting and little-known fact about us Night Furies is that we have retractable teeth. No one really knows why, but it's very entertaining to startle others with them. Apparently the human didn't know about the whole retractable teeth thing. As I opened my mouth to take the fish, he said, "Toothless? I could've sworn you had..."

My teeth popped out and I grabbed the fish, eating it with pleasure.

"...Teeth."

I decided to see if he would accept the dragon way of becoming, if not friends, then at least good acquaintances. To tell the truth, it was partly to see how he would react, not being a dragon and all. His first reaction was unimpressive. As I approached he backed up, tripped, and pressed himself against a rock.

"I don't...I don't have any more."

This stupid guy thought I wanted more! I guess it was to be expected. I spit up the tail half of the fish—in my opinion the best part—into his lap. He looked thoroughly disgusted. This was going to be more fun than I thought. I sat like he did and watched. We stared at each other for a bit. He looked rather uncomfortable. I looked at the fish, then back at him, to see if he got the hint. He did. With a sigh he bit off a mouthful before holding the fish half out to me. I swallowed, and he gave me an, "are you kidding?" look before obliging. I had a hard time keeping myself contained at the faces he made while trying to swallow. Maybe he wasn't as stupid as I thought he was. More to mess with him than anything else, I licked my lips. He bared his teeth in a strange way that I have since learned is called a smile. It was quite interesting, so I mimicked it. Laying the fish half aside, he stood and reached out to touch me. I showed him my teeth and growled before running off and gliding awkwardly to the other side of the water. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone tries to touch me. Either I touched it first, or there was no touching. I was going to take a nap anyway. I torched a patch of ground and laid down on it, enjoying the warmth. A small bird chirped and flew off. I actually kind of liked songbirds, though I'd never admit it. When it was out of sight I looked down. The human was sitting there. OK, this twerp was starting to get a little annoying. I shifted myself so that my tail was between us, with my one tail fin blocking my view of him in hopes that he would take the hint and go away. Apparently he didn't, because I could hear him scooting closer to me. Sure enough, when I looked his hand was close to my tail. He stood, looking shamefaced, and went off. For heaven's sake, all I wanted was a nap. I got up and found one of the huge roots that protruded from the wall. With a small amount of climbing and maneuvering I managed to hang by my tail. Not the most comfortable position, but definitely not the worst. There was no way he could touch me up here.

When I woke up from my short nap I saw the human sitting on a rock, facing away from me. He seemed to be focusing on the ground. Curious, I got down and went to look over his shoulder. Strangely enough, he was using a stick to draw lines in the dirt. He glanced at me before continuing. Well, if he could do it, I certainly could. Finding a large sapling, I broke it off and began drawing my own lines. Mine were much bigger and, in my opinion, better than his. He looked around, seemingly as impressed as I was. Still looking, he stepped on one of my lines. I growled, and he stopped and lifted his foot. I stopped growling. He put his foot on the line again, as if he was checking to see if that was why I had growled. I growled again. He lifted it up, and I stopped. He did it again—just to annoy me, I'm sure—before stepping over my line. When I didn't growl he smiled before stepping over my lines and looking around. Right as he was about to back into me he stopped. Why couldn't humans walk normal like everyone else? Oh well. Whatever. He turned around. I watched him. He was pretty OK, for a human. He reached out to touch me, and I growled. The no touchy rule applied to OK people just as much as everyone else. He got the message. Looking away, he held out his hand, palm towards me, and held it there. Maybe it meant that he trusted me enough to risk me biting it off. After a moment of hesitation I pressed my nose slightly against his hand. He sagged for a moment like he was going to have a heart attack before looking at me. I withdrew and snorted. There, he should be happy now. I went off to think about what had happened and about what I had just done.


	2. Chapter 2

Over the next few days the human came just about every day. He didn't really try to touch me again, which was nice, but I didn't like the way he was constantly looking at my tail and making lines in his little thingamajig. He also started calling me Toothless, which I thought was absolutely ridiculous. It should have been very obvious that I had teeth, from all the times I had showed him, unless it was some strange human humor that I had yet to understand. One morning the human brought a large covered basket and a long thing under his arm.

"Hey, Toothless," he called quietly as he came over to where I was, "I brought breakfast. I hope you're hungry."

He tipped over the basket, spilling fish onto the ground. A lot of fish. He also said something about "disgusting" and "cod" but I ignored him. After making sure there were no obvious strings attached, I began nosing through the fish. Suddenly I caught a whiff of something I hated.

We dragons do not like eels. At all. Sort of like how a lot of humans don't like spiders or snakes. This irrational fear affects some more than others. I've heard that Zipplebacks are particularly bad, but I've never actually asked one. I backed off, growling. The human picked up the eel, and I did the dragon equivalent jumping back and screaming (which I am told involves making a funny face, but due to the lack of reflective surfaces I have never confirmed it).

"No no no no, no! OK." he tossed the offending eel away, "Yeah, I don't really like eel much, either."

After making sure that there were no more little surprises, I began snapping up the fish. It was kind of nice, not having to actually catch the fish myself. Idly, I wondered what the catch was. There was almost always one when you were dealing with humans. I was cleaning out the basket when I felt two things on my tail. One was above my tail fin and felt kind of heavy. The other was along where my left tail fin had been, almost like the fin had been replaced. Had the human somehow...I slowly spread my wings. Only one way to find out. I took off. For a few moments, I was flying. As I neared the wall, though, I lost control. It looked as though I was going to crash. Oh crud, this is going to hurt. Suddenly it was like I had two tail fins again. I shot upward, barely missing the ground. Something caused me to veer right, and I glided with it. I was flying! Going back into the cove, I glided over the water. A noise caused me to look back. The twerp was clinging onto my tail, holding onto what looked like an artificial tail fin. A sharp left turn dislodged him, throwing him into the water. I began to lose control. Looking back, I saw that the artificial tail fin was closed, putting me in the same trouble I was in before. I plowed into the water. After I came to a stop I got up and shook the water off. The human jumped up and yelled, "Yeah!" I took this to mean that he thought the whole incident was a success. Heck, with this guy I might be able to fly again. Who knew?

A couple of days later the human came with a leather something-or-other that he obviously meant to put on me. Needless to say, he did quite a lot of chasing before realizing that it wasn't going to work. It took a lot of talking and even more fish before I even let him near me with that thing. Unfortunately, when I let him put the thing on me, I also inadvertently let him on as well. The human learned to hold on tight very quickly. After a couple of times I figured out that he was helping me to fly from my back, and I let him on without making him chase me. At first the main problem was how to keep the tail fin open. We learned quickly that various methods didn't work. In addition, we also crashed a lot. By this time I had decided that the human was my friend, otherwise I wouldn't have let him near me after the first crash. He began to know me really well. Every time he wanted to add something to his contraption he would bring a load of fish. Soon he had it to the point where he could put the tail fin in different positions. What's more, he came up with the idea of tying me to a stump on a windy cliff so we didn't crash while he figured out the different positions. It was nice, not crashing all the time. That's not to say that we never did, though. One time, in combination of a strong gust of wind with an improper tail fin position, the rope snapped, sending us crashing back into the trees. We weren't hurt, but he couldn't unhook the line that made sure he didn't fall off. He could have just taken off his harness thingy, but either he didn't think about it or he didn't want to risk me running off and losing me. He waited around for a couple of hours until it was dark before leading me to the human Nest. I have to admit that I was interested, never having been this close before, but he hurried me into a building. It was stuffed full of interesting things. I sniffed inside a bucket, found nothing interesting, and tossed it aside in an effort to get it off my nose. It did make a noise, but nothing too loud. As the human was prying the hook loose, a voice outside said, "Hiccup? Are you in there?"

Hiccup? That was an even stupider name than Toothless. Maybe it was some strange human custom to give things stupid names. He jumped out the window and closed it behind him. I heard him say, "hi, Astrid" a bunch of times. Not exactly the best talker, apparently. I was trying to catch a glimpse of this Astrid person when a sheep caught my attention. I really prefer fish, but sheep are OK for a late night snack. I tried to get at it but had some difficulty, as Hiccup was still attached to the saddle. With a little bit of tugging I managed to pull him through. However, he insisted that we leave immediately, so we did.

Finally, Hiccup decided we could fly without being tied to the stump. With a lot of excitement and a little bit of trepidation we headed out over the ocean. It felt great to be in the air again. I just hoped all this junk that Hiccup had put on me would hold together.

"OK, there, bud, we're gonna take this nice and slow."

Why did humans have to come up with so many names? He muttered something about position four. The tail fin went out into the "straight" position. I felt fantastic. I was flying again! I dived and flew over the sea, one wing skimming the water. Wind rushed past us as we flew under a huge natural arch. Seabirds, nesting in the high reaches of the rock, took wing at our passing. We cleared the arch in admirable fashion and gained altitude. Apparently Hiccup hadn't learned that the "straight"position was just for flying straight. I crashed into one column of rock and slammed into another. A little miffed, I slapped him with my ear, a nifty trick I'd learned earlier. He switched tail fin positions and we began climbing steeply. I could hear Hiccup yelling. He seemed almost as happy as I was. Then, at the top of the climb, something went wrong.

Hiccup became unhooked and fell off. Without him, the tail fin closed and I began falling as well. We both began tumbling from the sky. Well this sucks. As I was spinning uncontrollably Hiccup shouted something about angling myself. Fine one to talk; he didn't have wings and a tail to deal with. By some miracle he managed to get close enough to get back in the saddle and opened the tail fin. We were still going pretty fast, but now I had some control. As we started falling over forest I spread my wings and fins wide open in an attempt to slow down. Still going going fast, I saw that we were heading for a bunch of rocks enshrouded in mist. We were going to die if Hiccup didn't get his act together, pronto. By yet another miracle he did, and we went through the rocks almost as good as I could have done. Almost, but not quite. What's more, he moved with me instead of sitting on my back like a lump of rock, leaning into the turns and making it easier to steer. As we cleared both the rocks and the mist he stood up and shouted. I shot a victory flame and flew through. Apparently he didn't appreciate it as much as I did.

We landed on a flat, rocky place where the stones were shaped like hexagons. Hiccup scrounged around until he got a small pile of wood and lit it. That done, we caught some fish to celebrate. He only kept a couple, which was fine with me. As I said before, I like fish, and near-death experiences made me hungry. He stuck a fish on a stick and held it over the fire. Why humans do that I have no idea. There are only two ways to eat meat: raw or carbonized. I ate a fish and spit out the head. Hiccup held up his fish-on-a-stick.

"Ah, no thanks, I'm good."

All right, then, suit yourself. There were several cries, and four midget dragons flew down. They were clearly after my fish, which I crouched over as I growled. One made off with the fish head. I let it slide. I wasn't too fond of the head. Another midget dragon tried to steal it, and a short flight ensued. I looked back at my fish to discover another of the little cretins making off with one of my fish. A very brief tug-of-war ensued. I won, naturally, and ate the fish before laughing at the midget dragon. What are you gonna do now, huh? The stupid little thing took up a fighting stance, taking a deep breath to get ready to fry me. Fat chance. A little fire in its mouth put it in its place. Looking stunned, it staggered off.

"Huh. Not so fireproof on the inside, are ya?" For some inexplicable reason, Hiccup tossed it one of his fish. The suck-up ate it before rubbing against him and laying down. Maybe they had to be suck-ups. It's not like they were capable of doing much of anything else.

"Everything we know about you guys is wrong." Hiccup said softly as he stroked the midget dragon. Duh. I could have told him that.

The next day I was napping at the opposite end of the cove from where Hiccup usually came when a noise woke me. I looked up in time to see another human look at me, gasp, and tackle Hiccup. That was unacceptable. No one hurt Hiccup except me. I bounded over, intent an ripping her to pieces. She jumped up and waved a weapon at me. Like that was going to stop me. Hiccup tackled her and threw the weapon away.

"It's OK, it's OK." he said, standing in between me and her, "she's a friend."

Yeah, right. I tried to get closer, but he held me back.

"You just scared him."

Scared? I was _not_ scared. I just didn't want anyone beating up _my_ human.

"I scared him?" the other human said shrilly. Wuss. "Who is him?"

Someone who's ready and willing to rip your face off, that's who.

"Astrid, Toothless. Toothless, Astrid."

By the way he said it I knew that Hiccup didn't want me to hurt Astrid. I made my message very clear. Touch him again and I will tear out your heart and feed it to you. Astrid glared for a moment before turning and running off.

"Da da-da, we're dead."

I huffed and started off. Not only did we have this whole little fiasco, but they had disturbed my nap.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa, where do you think you're going?"

I _was_ going to finish my nap and let Hiccup deal with his own mess, but he thought differently. After a small amount of reasoning, begging, and yelling, he got me to fly after Astrid. I caught her, literally, as she was jumping over a large log. For something so small she had a good pair of lungs, judging by how long and loud she yelled. I deposited her on the top of a tall, isolated pine and landed on it myself, causing the top to bend horizontally. It was time for Hiccup to do some fast talking.

"Hiccup, get me down from here!" Astrid yelled.

"You have to give me a chance to explain."

"I am not listening to anything you have to say!" So much for the fast talking.

"Then I won't speak. Just let me show you. Please, Astrid."

Astrid hauled herself up, slapping away Hiccup's hand when he offered it to her. If she kept acting like that she could take the express route down. I growled when she was about to touch me. The no touchy rule most definitely applied to her right now, despite the fact that she had to step on my leg in order to get on. Finally she managed to sit down behind Hiccup.

"Now get me down."

"Toothless, down. Gently." Hiccup ordered as he patted me. I spread my wings. "See? Nothing to be afraid of."

If there is something I hate more than people trying to touch me, it's people who won't apologize. Until I heard an apology from Astrid to either me or Hiccup, I was going to make sure there was most definitely something for her to be afraid of. Using the tree like a springboard, I took off fast, enjoying their panicked yells. Hiccup tried to get me to calm down, but I ignored him. Any tail fin position he tried I was able to use to my own purpose. I dived and splashed in the ocean before climbing high and spinning. Still spinning, I went into free fall. Then came the words I had been waiting for.

"OK, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just get me off this thing!"

I spread my wings. We stopped spinning and falling abruptly, getting a startled cry from Astrid. I glided for a moment to check what position the tail fin was in before heading into the clouds, gentle as a calm summer morning. Now I'd show them what flying was really about. We soared through a landscape of clouds, going around columns and over hills. Night fell, and I took them above the clouds, flying underneath the dancing lights that frequently came out at this latitude. The clouds ended, and we were flying by the human Nest.

"All right, I admit it, this is pretty cool." That's right. In your face, Astrid. "It's..amazing. He's amazing."

OK, she's cleared the no touchy rule. We headed back over the ocean, flying towards the clouds. Suddenly two things caught my attention. One was the pull, too strong for me to resist. The second was the sound of dragons. A lot of dragons, probably hauling in the Green Death's next meal. Crud. I followed the pull, suddenly veering into the cloud bank. As I flew I was joined by other dragons, each with some kind of food. I tried to look like I wanted to be left alone and hoped that the humans would have enough sense to keep low and quiet. Hiccup put a hand on my neck.

"'Kay, bud, you gotta get us out of here."

I shook off his hand. There was no way I could leave now. Faintly, I could hear the humans whispering. Maybe it hadn't occurred to them that if another dragon heard them it could easily pick them off my back. Right now the only reason no other dragon asked questions was because it was usually a bad idea to ask a Night Fury anything. We entered the Nest. I looked for a good ledge to land on and found one pretty high up where we could watch in relative safety. The other dragons dropped their kill into the red mists of the hole. The last was a Gronkle, second on my list of annoying/stupid dragons only to the midget dragons. It dropped a small fish and hung around, scratching itself. Definitely one of the stupidest. There was a roar and the Green Death's head appeared, snapping up the Gronkle. Apparently it didn't get enough to eat.

"Alright, bud, we gotta get out of here!" Hiccup said urgently. The Green Death could smell them. Yep, definitely time to leave. I took off amid the hundreds of other dragons, barely missing the Green Death's teeth as it lunged. Moving as fast as was practical, I flew back to the cove. The two humans got off, talking. Only half listening, I began to drink. I did catch something about Hiccup not wanting to say anything in order to keep them from killing me. I was most definitely on his side. After some more pointless conversation Astrid hit him. Hiccup looked at me and made a what's-up-with-that gesture. I snorted and went back to drinking. Your girlfriend, your problem. Then she kissed him and ran off. Hiccup stared after her as I came up by him. I think he liked her.

"What are you looking at?"

Yep. He definitely liked her.


	3. Chapter 3

Early on in our friendship I became acquainted with Hiccup's scream. It sounded like a combination of a midget dragon and rusty metal and was ridiculously loud. The next morning I was napping when I swore I heard it. Somehow, I knew that my human was in trouble. I realized then how close we were. Frantically, I literally clawed my way out of the cove and ran to where his scream was coming from, gliding when I could and desperately wishing for my other tail fin. When I got there I took the situation at a glace.

Some sort of fighting ring had been hewn from the rock and was capped with metal bars and chains. In the ring a Monstrous Nightmare had Hiccup pinned down. The list of who could hurt Hiccup contained only two, and the Nightmare was _not_ on it. Not even bothering to slow down, I blasted my way into the ring and jumped onto its back. A short fight ensued, with me trying to get it away from Hiccup. The Nightmare was no match for me, and I was able to get between it and him. This was my human, and no one could kill him except me. With a few threats the Nightmare ran off. Hiccup ran up and pushed me in an effort to get me to leave.

"Alright Toothless, go! Get out of here!"

Maybe he had forgotten the slight detail that I couldn't fly anywhere without him on my back. Humans began pouring into the ring, and Hiccup became more urgent.

"Go, go!"

A particular human caught my attention. He was the leader of the humans, the one most dragons called the Brown Death and probably the most dangerous. He also happened to be in front of the only available exit and running in my direction. Knocking other humans out if the way, I ran and pinned him to the ground. I was about to blast him when I heard Hiccup shout, "NO!" A little unsure, I stopped and looked at him. Are you sure about this? Something hit me in the side of my face and a bunch of human tackled me and pinned me to the ground. I glared at the Brown Death, unable to move, waiting for him to take the weapon someone held out to him and kill me. Instead, he pushed the weapon away.

"Put it with the others."

Making no attempt to be gentle, the humans quickly muzzled me and dragged me into an enclosure. The doors shut, leaving me in total darkness. I felt around and quickly discovered that the space was tiny and had only one exit. Discouraged, I spent the time wondering who I wanted to kill first: Hiccup, the Nightmare, or the Brown Death. I was sure Hiccup didn't mean for this to happen. The Nightmare was just defending itself. That left the Brown Death, who, I was sure, was responsible for Hiccup almost getting killed in the first place. I was coming up with the most painful ways to kill him when the doors opened. By the time my eyes adjusted to the light I was trussed up and being dragged in a most undignified manner to a cliff overlooking where all the ships were. I was forced through metal hoops set in thick wood so that I couldn't use my wings. Then they put a huge section of a tree, chained to the wood under my feet, around my neck. After being forced to suffer through all that, they put me on one of their ships. Yep, life pretty much sucked. The Brown Death walked past me.

"Lead us home, devil." he spat.

I glared at him before hanging my head in defeat. This was the end. Sorry, Hiccup, it was nice knowing you.

I had mixed emotions as we sailed. Anger at the Brown Death and fate, of course, and a bit of sadness and regret. But there was also fear. Yes, I was frightened for the second time in my life. I was once again completely at the mercy of a human, and this one seemed to be the total opposite of Hiccup. We reached the mist-enshrouded rocks that marked the beginning of dragon territory. The pull became so strong that I, to my shame, led the humans right through the mist. The sound of dragons grew louder, reaching a crescendo as my ship hit the pebbly beach of the Nest. The Brown Death jumped out, and the noises stopped. Someone had intruded upon the abode of dragons.

"We're here."

The other humans landed and began setting up rock throwers and unloading weapons. Stakes were sharpened and thrust in the ground. The stakes were going to be next to useless if a dragon set them on fire. At last everything was ready, and the rock throwers began pelting the mountainside. A hole opened into one of the many tunnels that wound through the mountain. There were cheers as the Brown Death stood in front of it. With a couple of signals the cheers stopped and a fireball was launched into the hole, revealing hundreds of dragons covering almost every inch of the tunnel. The Brown Death yelled as he charged in, and the dragons took flight. Those stupid humans thought they had chased them off and cheered. I sensed different. The Green Death was coming, and it wasn't going to be pretty. The Brown Death must have sensed something as well, for he told the others to form their ranks. Sure enough, the rocks began splitting and a massive roar caused the ships to rock at anchor. The humans began running as the Green Death emerged. The rock throwers only served to make it angrier and were destroyed one by one. Someone yelled for everyone to get to the ships. Idiots. The Green Death spewed flames everywhere and the ships caught fire, including the one I was on. This was probably the end for me.

The humans were running, all except the Brown Death and another who, during the course of the voyage, I had begun to think of as Stumpy. They seemed to be trying the distract it from the other humans. They were both about to die when a burst of flame struck the Green Death. Four dragons flew by, each with one or two humans on them. After some more flying a Nadder flew close. Hiccup jumped off and told Astrid, also on the Nadder, to go help the others. Astrid flew off, and he pulled the muzzle off and tried to free me. My relief at seeing him faded as the various methods he tried failed. The Green Death's tail struck the ships, causing a mast to almost crush Hiccup. It stepped on the front of the ship, and the ship disintegrated. I plunged into the icy water, still trapped. Hiccup dived in after me and continued to try to free me but was still unable to do so. Bubbles escaped from his mouth as he let go, succumbing to the cold and lack of air. We were both going to drown. Something grabbed him and pulled him away, much to my alarm. A few seconds later the Brown Death swam in front of me. We stared at each other for a moment, then he broke open the collar. I got out from under the hoops, grabbed him, and shot our of the water. Dropping him on the beach, I landed, shook the water off, and looked at Hiccup. Time to deal with the Brown Death later.

"You got it, bud." Hiccup said as he ran and jumped on.

"Hiccup!" the Brown Death caught hold of his arm, "I'm sorry. For-for everything." OK, I'd think about not killing him.

"Yeah, me too." Oh, no. Now was _not_ the time for a heart-to-heart talk.

"You don't have to go up there." Um, yeah, he kind of did.

"We're vikings. It's an occupational hazard." Could we just go already?

"I'm proud to call you my son."

"Thanks, Dad." The Brown Death was Hiccup's dad? Whoa, didn't see that coming. Hiccup looked at me and we took off, soaring into the air. As I climbed I saw one of the humans jump off the Green Death's head (why on earth was he up there?) onto a Zippleback. The Green Death began sucking the Nadder—and Astrid—into its mouth. A fast dive and a blast in the mouth stopped it, but knocked Astrid off in the process. I turned and dived, catching her by the foot.

"Did you get her?"

I looked down. Astrid smiled, and I smiled back. Deftly flipping her so that I caught hold of her arms, I set her down and flew off. I had bigger problems to worry about than Hiccup's girlfriend. As we passed over the Green Death, Hiccup said, "That thing has wings! All right, let's see if it can use them!" My guess would be that it could. Only one way to find out. We flew up, turned, and dived. A picture-perfect hit, then back into the air.

"You think that did it?"

The Green Death roared behind us. I'd say yes.

"Well, it can fly."

Duh. We flew in between the rocks. The Death just crashed through them, getting a little too close for comfort.

"OK, Toothless. Time to disappear!"

We shot upwards, towards the overcast sky. Narrowly avoiding a jet of flame, we made it into the clouds. Once we were relatively safe, Hiccup told me to aim for the wings. Nothing easier. Those things were too big to miss. The Death roared as it turned this way and that, trying to find us. I hit it from behind and veered around it, hitting the wings with my usual impressive accuracy. Very angry, the Death began spewing fire everywhere. We barely managed to miss it, but in the process of dodging the tail fin caught on fire. Oh, great.

"OK, time's up. Let's see if this works."

With a bit of catch-me-if-you-can and other taunts we dived, the Death close behind. I was beginning to get nervous, as my steering was approaching nil.

"Stay with me, buddy. We're good. Just a little bit longer."

I sure hoped Hiccup knew what he was doing. We were getting pretty close to crashing.

"Hold, Toothless." I hoped he timed this right. "Now!"

I flipped over and shot a blast into its mouth. Fire blossomed. Then we were out of the clouds. The Death opened its wings, but had too many holes in them to stop. I flipped right side up and opened my wings, almost flying right between its jaws. It crashed and...exploded. Not a wussy little boom. I'm talking about the kind that could level half the island the humans lived on. The explosion raced upwards. We were flying along the death's back, unable to get clear. I had practically no control. The Death's tail loomed up suddenly, and we crashed into it. Hiccup was knocked off and fell towards the inferno. I did my best to catch up to him, racing gravity and flame. We were in the fire before I caught hold of him. Wrapping my wings around him to keep him safe from the flames, I prayed that we were not too far above the ground. Fire battered at me, trying to get me to relinquish my prize. When I did find the ground, I hit it so hard I was knocked unconscious.

A voice. I opened my eyes. Hiccup's dad was kneeling in front of me, looking sorrowful. OK, not on my hit list anymore.

"I'm so...I'm so sorry." his voice choked with emotion. All right, he was clear. I unfolded my wings and showed him my precious burden.

"Hiccup!" he stumbled over and took Hiccup. Throwing off his helmet, he pressed an ear to Hiccup's chest to see of he was alive, which of course he was. Why would I have saved him if he wasn't?

"He's alive! You brought him back alive!"

There was cheering, and I noticed all the other humans, as well as some dragons, gathered a short distance away. Hiccup's dad put his hand gently on my head. I was too hurt to object.

"Thank you, for saving my son."

Stumpy came over. "Well, you know, most of him."

I would like to point out that one, Hiccup was alive, and two, I didn't see you out there risking your life to save him. Too tired to really be angry, I let it slide.

I don't remember much of the trip back, except that I got to one of the surviving ships under my own power, slept most of the way, and stayed as close to Hiccup as possible. Sometime during the trip, when I was asleep, they took off the ruined flying gear. I was fine with that. It wasn't of much use now. With a little bit of growling on my part I was allowed to stay in the same place as Hiccup. They even moved is bed into the big area so I wouldn't take up all the room. After a few days I was fully recovered. It took that long for Hiccup just to wake up. I was waiting—very patiently, I might add—by his bed when he opened his eyes. I nudged him gently, relieved that he was OK, then a little more forcefully. He'd been lying in bed long enough. I'm afraid I accidentally stepped on him, so I backed off. He moaned a little before stopping in surprise.

"I'm in my house. Um, you're in my house..."

I was so glad he was awake I didn't listen to what he said next but bounded around, nudged him, then jumped up onto a wooden beam. This place had all sorts of interesting things in it.

"Toothless! Aw, come on..." he made a move to get up, stopped, and lifted up the blanket. I got down and took a few steps towards him. He looked sad as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The right foot was fine. The left, ironically, had been replaced with a wood and metal contraption. I sniffed at it, being unfamiliar with it, before looking up at Hiccup. He had my empathy. Now we were both cripples. He took a couple of deep breaths and stood. I backed off a bit. He managed to take one step, took a deep breath, and tried another, but stumbled and fell. I caught him and helped him back up. He put his arm around my neck and leaned on me.

"OK."he said softly. Then, louder, "Thanks, bud."

For some reason, I didn't mind him calling me all those ridiculous names anymore. We headed for the door. He opened it and immediately slammed it shut again when he saw a Monstrous Nightmare's head.

"Toothless, stay here."

All right, but not for long. He opened the door again and stepped outside to see dragons and people everywhere.

"I knew it. I'm dead." I hoped not, after all that work I put into saving him. Hiccup's dad laughed as he came up.

"No, but you gave it your best shot. So, what do you think?"

They walked down the stairs and were soon surrounded by people. I also happened to notice a midget dragon or two. Great. Astrid punched Hiccup before kissing him. With any luck he wouldn't get so infatuated that he forgot about me. I wasn't too worried about that, though. I had ways of making my presence known. I waited until Stumpy gave Hiccup what could only be new flying equipment before bounding down, jumping over or on people when they wouldn't get out of my way. Just as I thought, Hiccup was holding a newly-made saddle and tail fin. I almost shuddered with anticipation. It was time to go flying.

...

Hope it was enjoyable. Review if you so desire.


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